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For me, religion has always been a fascinating subject. I was brought up with Christianity as a family faith when I was
young. I attended Sunday school most Sundays, and on days that Sunday school did not convene, I went to church. This was
at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. The Crystal Cathedral is one of the largest churches in the world,
with over 1,000,000 members. It was here that my belief in a higher power and ultimate authority began.
The following consists of a brief description of Christian denominations that I have encountered, as well as others I
have heard of. The growth, decline, and reformation of my faith is explored, as well as a critique of the way Christianity
is practiced and how it appears conveniently used for selfish oppressive purposes.
During my early adolescent years, I briefly resided with a family who were Baptists. The Christian Baptist denomination
is fairly strict in its teaching and adherence, using only the old King James Version of the Bible as the bona fide reference
for this denomination. They are partial to the "fundamentalist"; label, believing that the Bible is the one and
only "Word of God." Here, I was exposed to "black-and-white" religious rules, a subtle level of intolerance
for people who are not Christian, and the idea of "hell." This planted the seed of fundamentalism within me that
would reign for about four years.
Before this, I learned a little about the Jehovah Witness denomination, which is one of the smaller groups of Christianity.
Due to its relatively small number of adherents, many other Christian denominations refer to it as a "cult." Jehovah
Witnesses do not celebrate holidays, recognize no earthly nationality, and attend Kingdom Halls rather than churches per se.
They put out two evangelistic magazines, specifically The Watchtower and Awake! From my observance of their activities, their
primary concern is to evangelize. Often on Saturdays they will congregate in groups and distribute The Watchtower and Awake!
to homes that will receive them. Their doctrine appears to primarily focus on the takeover of the world by Satan and the
degenerate attributes of society.
Due to my mother's fervent dislike of Jehovah Witnesses, I likewise disliked them, opening my mind up only later early
on in my adolescence. Later, I became briefly exposed to Mormonism and Unitarianism. The main influences in my personal
faith-based belief system consisted of my time with the Baptists and the Foursquare church, which I joined later in my junior
year of high school. During that time, my conservatism was at its height, which would decline during my first year at Los
Angeles Harbor College
My questioning of my faith began when I learned of the origins of the Bible. According to historical records, Christianity
was heavily persecuted after Jesus' death. The penalty of practicing a faith in the Roman Empire aside from the worship of
the Emperor and the polytheistic gods was death by slaughter in the lion's den. One day during a battle, the Emperor Constantine
had a vision of a cross. He won the battle. He believed that his victory was divinely inspired. He asked to be baptized
and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire; hence the term "Roman Catholic" (although the Catholic
Church would not receive its name until after the Reformation).
After this, a group of people met at the Council of Nicea to discuss how the doctrine of the faith would be shaped.
During this time, the various letters and books of the Torah, accounts of Jesus' life, and letters from Paul to the churches
in the region were discussed. Debate took place of which books to compile in a document called the “Holy Bible”
and which books to leave out. According to this documentary, as well as a later account from my pastor at church, the Council
decided which books agreed with what they believed to be the official "Word of God" and which ones did not agree
with their conceptions. Therefore, the Bible was put together by the first bureaucracy of a church, not by God as I had previously
believed.
My father for as long as I can remember has never been one to take church doctrine as the word of divinity. We often
had discussions in the past (of which he was the only person speaking) of how he believed Christianity as practiced today
is contradictory, and how he could not conceive of a divine being setting down ordained laws for the human race. Other questions
he brought up that I could never rebut is how Christians in America believe that God does not interfere in the affairs of
people, but at the same time we ask God to provide money, jobs, a new T.V. and other material possessions. Being, for the
most part, a non-materialistic pursuing person, I did not understand it myself.
One issue that he brought up that I could not explain either is the origin of the human race. According to the beginning
of Genesis in the Old Testament, God first made the earth and its physical geography, and then decided to populate the earth
with animals, two of those animals being humans. He named the man "Adam." The man named the woman "Eve."
Later after their eternal exile from the Garden of Eden, they had two sons; Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel because
of his raging jealousy of God';s acceptance of Abel's sacrifice and subsequent rejection of his. Cain was then exiled from
his land. Then, all of a sudden in Genesis 5:16, Cain knows his wife. No mention at all of how his wife came to be. However,
this scripture, as well as many others, is accepted in the Christian community without question.
As I mentioned earlier, I was first introduced to the concept of "hell" during my time with the Baptists.
Hell is described in the Bible of being a place within the earth where souls of people who have not accepted Christ as their
personal Lord and Savior are tortured for an eternity. Mentions of Hell include the Parable of the Tares, in which Jesus
compares the removal of the weeds that choked the good fruit of the field in Israel to the separation of the righteous people
from the evil in the Day of Judgment. Interestingly enough, from reading the Bible from cover to cover, I did not find a
mention of Hell until Psalms 9:17, during David's prophesy of the fate of the wicked: "The wicked shall be turned into
Hell, and all the nations that forget God."
I was brought up to never question any word of the Bible, for it was the Word of God. Therefore, if God wrote it, it
is by nature non-contradictory and therefore contains no paradoxical elements. However, the subject of Hell was one I questioned
in the deepest recesses of my mind, even during my fundamentalist period. The question was, "Why would God condemn His
own creation to a place of such heinous torture and tribulation forever and ever? Why would a loving God do this?"
The main thesis of Christianity is the love of God for His creation. However, at the same time, Hell is constantly waved
around as the consequence of making the individual choice of not practicing this mode of faith. I have found that Hell is
used the majority of the time as a form of terrorism, forcing a person, group of people, or even a culture to accept the antagonist's
way of life and more importantly, their control over them. An example consists of the evangelistic efforts of the Spaniards
during their assimilation of the Indians. A typical practice was to threaten a village to immediately accept Christianity
as their new faith or "send them to hell" by executing the entire population. This kind of coercion is employed
as social control, not evangelism. Interestingly enough, there is a reference in the Bible to this type of evangelism, which
I will get into later on in this discussion.
In the Bible, there are references to the "godless"and the "evil ones." In our society as well as
many others, there is a consensus on multiple deeds that are considered "evil." A few consist of stealing, murder,
rape, theft, extortion, deceit, deeds committed in war, etc. Then there are other practices that do not have such a black
and white label, and are more controversial. These consist of the private relations of gays, practice of other religions
other than Christianity, sexual activities outside of marriage, and dissent of various doctrines of Christianity. The brand
that these people receive is the word "heretic," which means a person who is opposed to the established doctrine
of a church body. Ironically, the first people to receive such a label were the cultus of Christians at the Council of Nicea,
who called themselves "Arians." Since that time, from the Reformation to the present, different sects of Christianity
have continually demonized one another as "heretics." It is ironic that a religion that prides itself on unity judges
not only others, but itself. And in the Bible, Jesus is recorded as saying, "And how can you say to your brother, 'Look,
there is a speck in your eye,' when there is a plank in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank in your eye, and
then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Luke 7:2-3, New King James Version).
Despite the stated message of love, forgiveness and redemption, many territorial and ideological wars have been carried
out in the name of Christianity. Such examples consist of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. It was characteristic
in these campaigns to invade a country and round up all of the residents of a particular town or place and force them to convert
to Christianity. If they didn't, they were executed immediately. Such a method is something I like to call "Shotgun
Christianity." Torque Made was one such inquisitor.
In the United States during the waves of colonization after Christopher Columbus, forced conversion of Native Americans
was a common practice. Spanish missions and Protestant missionaries were the primary prolethyzers. According to Religions
and Religion by Catherine Albanese and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by David Dae, a good proportion of these evangelical
institutions sought to eliminate as much of the Indian's cultural tradition as possible. Instead, the Indians combined both
this new religion and their old traditions, keeping in contact with their roots.
After the liberation of Yugoslavia from the dominant influence of the Soviet Union, civil war erupted. Serbian president
Slobodan Milosevic proclaimed his desire for a "greater Serbia." He and his military cronies began an ethnic cleansing
campaign of the most brutal variety. The religion of these Serbians was Orthodox Christianity. Interestingly enough, these
people took men out of their homes and shot them to death in ditches. They had a special treatment for the women. They took
them to the busloads to "rape camps." There, the women were raped repeatedly in order to produce Serbian babies
and "dilute" the "impure" blood of the Muslims. And these men were Christians.
Another paradigm that shines contradiction for the impartial analyst is the paradox of politicians and Christianity.
Many politicians in all levels of government...the Republican Party, in particular...tout Christianity as their holy faith.
During political campaigns, they are very quick to wave the flag of morality, righteousness, and their "moral vision"
for America. When I was younger, I was naïve enough to believe their statements.
In my senior year in high school, based on what I was taught, I adopted the belief that the majority of politicians are
honest people that represent their constituents honestly and in a moral way, in consistency with the doctrines of God, the
Bible, and the faith contained therein. However, upon moving to Carson the summer of 2001 when I was 17, this would soon
change. I began attending the city council meetings early January of the next year. It was then that I began to hear rumors
about the mayor and council members engaging in bribery schemes in the desire for money. At first, I discarded these rumors
as tabloid myths. However, one cannot shy away from that which is truth forever.
From what I remember, Mayor Daryl Sweeney (now the former mayor of Carson) was Episcopalian. I remember him virulently
defending El Roca De Salvacion, the Spanish-speaking church a few blocks from where I live. He stated that they were in the
"soul-saving" business and used quotations from the Bible to affirm this. By this time, he had been charged with
bribery and conspiracy. I still hoped that the charges were false, despite the increasing evidence. Then the story broke
on CBS 2 news.
Daryl Sweeney, the God-fearing mayor, had been found guilty of bribery and conspiracy. According to a relative of one
of the other councilmen, Sweeney was sentenced to 7 years in Federal prison. To me, this is the most blatant example of hypocrisy
that I've personally seen in my life. It's interesting how politicians are so quick to quote scripture, but forget 1 Timothy
6:10, which states "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for in this some have strayed from the faith,
and it has pierced them with many sorrows." A perfect example of how Biblical scripture is used merely for convenience
instead of example.
The primary practice in American Christianity that I find most disturbing is the practice of steadfastly using and implementing
many Biblical customs while dismissing others as "old practices." Such instances include intimate relations of
those of the same sex, the dress attire of men and women in church, the status of women speaking within the church, and the
paradigm of loving one's neighbor while ascending to the judgment seat if he/she does not follow the same faith he/she follows.
The following elaborates on each of these points.
In 1 Corinthians 11:2-6, Paul states "Now I praise you brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the
traditions as I delivered them to you. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is
man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every
woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were
shaved. For if a woman is not covered let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let
her be covered."
As stated here, it is logical to assume that the churches of today...Protestant and Catholic alike...would require all
men to have their hats removed and for women to have their heads covered, similar to Muslim women from the Middle East. However,
this is not so. In all of the churches I have been to (granted, they were almost all Protestant churches) some men had their
heads covered with hats, and all of the women that I remember had their heads uncovered. Obviously, this custom is no longer
followed. Yet the philosophy of inerrancy (i.e., believing that the Bible is literal and true, and that it should be followed
as such) is propogated in many Protestant churches, particularly the Baptist and other denominations that descended from Calvinism.
1 Corinthians 14:34 states, "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but
they are to be submissive, as the law also says." Again, Paul makes his point clear. In this chapter, he communicates
to the Corinthians the organization in which the church should abide by. Women should not speak at any time. However, nowadays,
women speak in church in all functions and situations. The pastor’s wife at Hope Chapel Foursquare Church in Carson
gives the announcements every Sunday. In order to communicate the announcements, vocalization is necessary. In world famous
churches, such as the Crystal Cathedral, women artists sing Gospel music just about every Sunday. Again, the customs involving
the separation of women from church service (apparently just because they're women; there appears to be no other reason)is
not followed. Yet, fundamentalists state that the entire Bible is to be followed literally.
Another interesting paradox along the same lines consists of churches preaching acceptance and love for all, but at the
same time dismissing those whose lifestyles, form of attire, or attitude do not conform. I employ two verses, one from Luke
and another from Colossians. "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look a glutton and
a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" (Luke 7:34) Then Paul states in 1 Corinthians 5:11 "But
now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater,
or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; not even to eat with such a person." Yet, Paul is portrayed as a representative
of the one who taught inclusion, forgiveness, and love for these people. From one corner of the mouth, churches state love
and acceptance, but from the other, they ascend to judgment.
Within all faiths, there is a general consensus that God gave us all minds and logic within to reason and question why
certain events happen, why life is the way it is, how and why people act they way they do, etc. However, if a person uses
this gift of reasoning to question the church or why God acts the way he does according to the way he/she is brought up, the
fundamentalists say that "Satan" is influencing that person. Through my questions, intellectual challenges, and
theories, this argument has been used time and time again like an old dust rag. It is the perfect way to close oneself off
from opposing ideas and admitting that the other person's argument may be more logical. But like that old dust rag, it gets
tattered and frays over time, reducing the other person's argument to nothing. One could argue that "Satan" was
influencing that person to be close-minded and dogmatic.
This leads into my next orchard of thought. In the film Passion of the Christ, there is a scene in which Pontius Pilate
asks Claudia, his wife "What is truth?" Indeed, everyone claims that they know it. The question is, do we really?
Every culture, religion, family, and person has their own version of "absolute truth" as to how one lives one's
life. This is a natural part of existence. However, this often lead and still leads to forcing others to accept this "truth,"
leading to persecution and disorder.
One life lesson that I took from my American Religious Diversity class my first semester at Cal State Long Beach in spring
of 2005 is that the best way to express one's religious opinions without unnecessarily inciting strife is to say what one's
religious affiliation believes in. The example my professor used consists of an interfaith seminar in which a representative
from Islam states, "Moslems believe that Jesus was a great prophet, but that Muhammed was God's final messenger."
Instead of angrily rising and saying, "That's a lie! I believe.." saying in a calm voice, "Well, Christians
believe..." This will elicit less hostility and more consideration. This is an example of how two fundamentally differing
opinions on truth exist.
The statement of my pastor in early October of 2004 about the construction of the Bible into the way that was the most
fitting for the church is what finally did it for me. On that night, I mentally broke away from Christianity as an organized
religion. As stated in my examples above, I believe that organized religion is contradictory to itself. It used for superficial,
arrogant, and power-aspiring purposes; a stepladder for people to dominate others and for politicians to gain power so they
can cash their six-digit paychecks every two Fridays of the month. Organized religion as it is run today is trillions of
metaphorical light years from the message of love, decency, and humility that Jesus taught over two thousand years ago.
My personal belief system centers around the four gospels, as well as portions of Paul's letters to the cities of Asia
Minor that coherently are symmetrical to Jesus' philosophy. I still believe strongly in God, due to the blessings I have
received and various experiences that have happened throughout my life. Each day I strive to learn by the principles given
from God and taught by Jesus, as well as the principles of right thinking, intentions, action, speech, livelihood, effort,
mindfulness and concentration as taught in the Eightfold Path in Buddhism. Unlike the opinionated, I consider Jesus' faith
and philosophy as well as the philosophy of Siddartha Gautama (Found of Buddhism) equally compatible with one another. My
break from fundamentalist thinking has made me a better person; a kinder, gentler, more accepting person. And it is my sincere
prayer that I will never go back.
I hope you enjoyed reading this. God bless you.
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